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DAN KRAKER: Grand Marais, to many Minnesotans, is that quaint little artisan enclave and tourist destination on the big lake full of charming galleries and cozy restaurants and surrounded by stunning natural beauty. But there's another troubling side to that postcard image. There have long been stories in Grand Marais about older men pursuing and having sex with high school girls. Beth Kennedy heard them more than 30 years ago when she moved here with her husband and daughter.

BETH KENNEDY: We started hearing about these 20, 25, 30-year-old men who were constantly at football games around the teenage girls. And who somehow believed that it was a great thing to be sleeping with virgins, and I was aghast.

DAN KRAKER: As her daughter approached high school age in the late 1970s, Kennedy says she grew worried that the community wasn't doing enough to protect girls.

BETH KENNEDY: And it wasn't that it was acceptable with all of society. It's just that nothing was done about it. People knew about it, and nothing was done.

PERRY WILSON: Back in the days, it was acceptable. That's the way it was. 16, 17-year-old, 18-year-old girls, that was their boyfriends back then, was a 25-year-old guy.

DAN KRAKER: This is Perry Wilson, a friend and defender of Dan Schlienz. In Grand Marais, most people know him by his nickname, Proof, short for 100 Proof. Sitting in a local cafe, Proof is 53, unshaven, in sweatpants and a jacket with intense, steely, blue eyes. Over coffee, Proof says he could have been jailed for his own exploits with teenage girls during what he calls his heyday when he was in his 20s. But he also stops short of admitting to criminal sexual conduct. In any case, Proof is adamant that he and other adult men did not pursue the girls. He says the girls pursued them.

PERRY WILSON: That's the way it's always been since man was born. The younger girls chased the older guys. Everybody thinks it's the older guys chasing younger girls. That's wrong. It ain't that way. In this community, in this town, all you need to pick up a 16-year-old high school girl is a nice looking truck or a nice car.

DAN KRAKER: Between them, 100 Proof and Beth Kennedy capture the consistent message from more than two dozen people who spoke to NPR News, including law enforcement, County officials, parents, and young women from Grand Marais who admit they had sex with adult men while in high school. In short, there's little dispute that high school aged girls had sex with adult men who were much older. The dispute is over whether it was acceptable.

It's not automatically illegal for adult men to have sex with a girl in high school. Minnesota law is complicated. But sex with a girl under age 16 is generally illegal for anyone more than two years older than the girl. It's always against the law if the man is more than 10 years older. Parents and authorities say they tried to stop sexual activity involving high school girls whether they were younger or older than 16. But for a variety of reasons, they say the efforts failed and the behavior persisted for decades.

There's little data to gauge whether Grand Marais is unusual, and the origins and explanations for why this activity occurred are also murky. None of that mattered to Beth Kennedy. When her daughter was in high school, she along with other concerned parents says she pushed for a rule banning nonstudents from school dances and other functions. The goal was to reduce the opportunities for older men to pursue girls.

But adult men didn't need school events to find girls to have sex with. I'm walking through knee deep snow into an old gravel pit several miles outside of Grand Marais. This is one of several places where high school kids would come to party. After the bars closed, older men would often arrive alcohol in hand.

You could do things like drink underage and not get caught.

This is a young woman who asked to be identified as Shannon. Shannon grew up in Cook County and came to a lot of what were called pit parties when she was in high school. NPR News agreed not to broadcast her real name. She recently graduated from college, and she fears her past may make employers reluctant to hire her. Shannon says she had sex with older men and says at least five friends of hers also had sex with older men.

SHANNON: It was not uncommon for my friends several young girls with several older men.

DAN KRAKER: At first, Shannon appears reluctant to spell out how many sexual partners she had in high school.

SHANNON: There's quite a few. And not that it was any big relationship or anything special--

DAN KRAKER: Eventually through email Shannon, reveals that before she turned 16, she had sex with about eight older men in Grand Marais. She says almost all her sexual partners were in their 20s, some 10 years older than she was. Under the law, those encounters, whether consensual or not, likely counted as criminal sexual conduct by the men. Shannon says she also had sex with several more men when she was 16 and 17. NPR News confirmed Shannon's story with a family member. Shannon acknowledges instigating some of the sexual encounters. She says the attention from older men was enjoyable and flattering.

SHANNON: That's exciting. And then you're looking for that, even just for that feeling.

DAN KRAKER: Victim advocates in Grand Marais say there is a pattern. A man would meet a girl at a party, buy her alcohol, give her a lift in his car, maybe later slipper some spending cash, buy her gifts, then ask for sex. Shannon says, eventually, sex almost felt like an obligation that she couldn't say no.

SHANNON: And I think it's a lot harder also it was for me to identify the difference then of new and exciting, and I'm scared this isn't OK.

DAN KRAKER: But Shannon says she never thought of pressing charges. For years, no one did. Annie DeBevec, who retired about five years ago as the Cook County social work supervisor, says rumors flew about older men having sex with underage girls. But she says girls were never willing to come forward.

ANNIE DEBEVEC: It was always so frustrating, because we could never get anyone to admit it.

DAN KRAKER: She says girls didn't want to get in trouble. They were ashamed. And in a small town, everyone would find out what they'd done.

ANNIE DEBEVEC: So it was very difficult. And you can't do anything with rumors. You can't prosecute. You can't take it to the County attorney.

DAN KRAKER: Steve Borud remembers anger and pressure from the community to confront the issue. Borud came to Cook County as a probation officer back in 1986.

STEVE BORUD: I remember one particular call in the middle of the night where a stepfather was threatening me he's going to somehow rough me up if I didn't find his daughter out there in the sea of wilderness because she was running with a well known adult.

DAN KRAKER: During his career, Borud has talked to many girls, parents, and grown women who admitted being involved with older men when they were teenagers. He says peer pressure, a fear of being branded a squealer helped breed a culture of silence that no one would break.

STEVE BORUD: This is a small town, and that's what you might be remembered by at your 20th year class reunion were you the one that told about the keg party, why did you come forward when some of the rest of us were with the same guy and we never came forward?

DAN KRAKER: Cook County attorney Tim Scannell and Sheriff Mark Falk tell the same story. Without evidence, they say, there's little they can do. That's why it was such a breakthrough when in 2006, three girls pursued charges against Dan Schlienz. Scannell says that while some people questioned the decision to prosecute, he received a lot of encouragement.

TIM SCANNELL: The overwhelming and massive response was support for the prosecution, almost a sense of, thank God, finally.

DAN KRAKER: By this time, Scannell and other law enforcement officials were well aware of Schlienz. About 10 years earlier, he had violated a restraining order filed by a high school girl's parents, but the girl decided later not to follow through with criminal sex charges. Scannell says that's not uncommon. It takes a huge toll, especially on teenagers, to become a prosecution witness.

TIM SCANNELL: You are shining a bright light on yourself, and you're putting yourself in a position where you're incredibly vulnerable after already being victimized. So it's no small thing.

DAN KRAKER: Faced with girls who are willing to testify against him, Schlienz pleaded guilty in 2006. He served a year in jail but then fought for years for a retrial, which finally took place in December. The shooting that followed and then Schlienz's death while in jail have rocked Grand Marais and thrust the issue of older men preying on underage girls into the forefront, and the reactions have varied widely. Few people who spoke to NPR News defended Schlienz, but there was an outpouring of support and sympathy for him when he died. Some residents, like Nancy Belding, say Schlienz paid his debt to society after his initial conviction.

NANCY BELDING: He served his sentence for that. Then he came back, this is his home, and it was made very hard for him. He was living in a place of his mother's because he couldn't find a place to live. He couldn't find a job.

DAN KRAKER: Others feel he was unfairly singled out for prosecution in the first place. After the shooting, Schlienz's sister, Bev Wolke, told the local paper, "I can name 20 other guys who are doing the same thing." The Schlienz family declined to be interviewed for this story. But Perry Wilson, or 100 Proof, laughs at that number. He says it's an understatement.

PERRY WILSON: Guaranteed, yeah. There's more of that [BLEEP] going on than you would ever believe. And he was singled out, no doubt about it.

DAN KRAKER: Jane Howard, Associate Editor at the Cook County News Herald says there is a lot of division in town.

JANE HOWARD: Between people who are appalled that statutory rape takes place and between people who knew Dan Schlienz and others who have engaged in that kind of relationship with minors.

DAN KRAKER: Howard says it's also been hard to deal with an issue that no one has really talked about much.

JANE HOWARD: And that has been swept under the rug by the community.

DAN KRAKER: Probation officer Steve Borud says there is another factor that may have helped preserve a culture of silence.

STEVE BORUD: When these guys say that these young gals were eager, I believe that.

DAN KRAKER: Borud says the sex may be consensual, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's legal. And even if it's both legal and consensual, research shows that having intercourse with older men can have damaging physical effects on girls. It leads to increased rates of teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, and it can have serious mental health consequences. A new study led by University of Minnesota sociologist Ann Meier compares teens who had sex with a partner at least two years older against teens who had sex with similar age partners.

ANN MEIER: And we did, in fact, find that teens who had sex with an older partner reported higher levels of depression and lower levels of self-esteem.

DAN KRAKER: A Grand Marais doctor bore witness to those problems in a letter to the judge who initially sentenced Schlienz in 2007. Urging a harsh sentence, the physician wrote, "I help these girls and the women they become deal with mental health issues, chemical dependency, unwanted pregnancies, single parenting, and sexually transmitted diseases. I see dreams potential and hope shattered."

For some women in Grand Marais, the shooting and the Schlienz case have triggered painful memories. Jodi Yuhasey directs the Violence Prevention Center in Grand Marais. Since the trial, she says she's fielded calls from local women who were involved with older men when they were younger. She says they've been thrown back into turmoil.

JODI YUHASEY: It brings it all back. And it's, how do I deal with this? I thought I was done.

DAN KRAKER: She says they're often angry at having to relive experiences that made life more difficult.

JODI YUHASEY: I thought that was a chapter in my life that had closed, and here it is again.

DAN KRAKER: It's hard for Yuhasey to talk about this. She was at the courthouse during the shooting in December. She tears up thinking back to it. And like many people approached by NPR News for this story, she worries that Grand Marais will be portrayed in a negative light. Grand Marais has a lot going for it. The town of about 1,000 has a high school graduation rate well above the state average in addition to a beautiful setting.

Cook County's education levels mirror the state's and unemployment in the County while seasonally volatile has been falling closer to the statewide average over the long term. So it's not surprising that people in Grand Marais say they doubt the town is unusual. After all, they say, teenagers elsewhere have sex with older partners.

But Grand Marais may be different, at least by one measure, the sex involves much older men. Jennifer Manlove, a senior researcher at Child Trends, a Washington, D.C nonprofit, has researched sex involving girls under 16 with partners at least three years older, which is illegal in many states. She says it's much more common for them to have sex with other teenagers, not older adult men.

JENNIFER MANLOVE: What we found was that most of these sexual relationships were between young teens and older teens. So relatively few of these relationships were between young teen girls and males in their 20s and seconds.

DAN KRAKER: In Grand Marais though, the pattern residents describe involves men in their 20s and 30s. It's unclear to what extent the activity still goes on. Still, in the wake of the Schlienz case, the topic has taken on urgency, and Grand Marais residents are speaking out, a lot. The local radio station has been hosting call in shows. There's been a dialogue that residents say didn't take place before the conviction.

Kathy Jo Thompson is the mother of the key witness in the Schlienz trial. Her husband was the second victim shot in the courthouse after testifying against Schlienz. She says her family's life has been hell for the past six years. But she says her daughter testified because, as Thompson puts it, she didn't want any other little girls to get hurt. Now she believes that message is spreading.

KATHY JO THOMSON: My boss told me that even in her household, that they have talked a lot with their boys over these last few weeks. This whole situation in Grand Marais has made their house have lots of discussions, good discussions.

[PHONE RINGING]

Good afternoon, County attorney's office.

DAN KRAKER: Things are slowly returning to normal at the Cook County Courthouse. The blood spattered carpet has been replaced. Prosecutor Tim Scannell is back at work less than two months after being shot three times at point blank range. Days after a second surgery, Scannell displays on his desk the bullet he's just had removed from his leg and the staples used to close up his chest.

He's feeling great. His energy is coming back. Initially, Scannell says he didn't think Grand Marais was different than anywhere else. He figured older men targeted younger girls everywhere. He says he now realizes there's been a long pattern of bad behavior in Cook County.

TIM SCANNELL: What I've learned is that Dan Schlienz was brought into that approach with girls by some other adult males. So I think it is a longer term problem than I realized on the front end.

DAN KRAKER: Scannell worries about the divide Schlienz's conviction and the shooting that followed has exposed in Grand Marais. But for some, the tumultuous events have also led to healing. Shannon, who is involved with over a dozen older men when she was in high school, says she fell into a long pattern of abusive and unhealthy relationships. But now she's reconnected with friends who've had similar experiences. Shannon says she can talk with them about events in her past that she hasn't talked about to anyone before.

SHANNON: Just talking about it and getting it out-- getting out how we felt then, how we felt about it now, and just having that connect with each other, I think, has been really nice and healing together.

DAN KRAKER: Shannon says it's nice to know that she's not alone. And she hopes that by speaking out now, maybe she can help prevent other girls from doing what she did. Dan Kraker, Minnesota Public Radio News, Grand Marais.